Cowboy Bebop: Dream Sequence
by Sarryn
Summary: Contrary to popular belief Spike didn't die. In fact he is the current leader of the Red Dragons, but there are two problems with that: 1) he doesn't want to be the leader and 2) some other people don't want him to be either.
1. Default Chapter

Just another happy fic that I've posted because I have nothing better to do and I'm one of the few people who are firmly convi

Just another happy fic that I've posted because I have nothing better to do and I'm one of the few people who are firmly convinced that, contrary to popular belief, Spike didn't die and is waiting for me somewhere so we can get married…I mean he didn't die…yeah…don't hurt me! Review.

Cowboy Bebop: Dream Sequence

Session 27:

Legend

The pain…god the pain was too much. How could a body hurt so much and still be alive? Spike Spiegel soon found the answer as he slowly opened his eyes. The sight before him was blurry and out of focus, but he knew he was still alive, unfortunately. Was he dreaming? Was he still trapped in the dream? The pain told him it was a dream of a different kind.

But she had escaped…Julia. 

She said she would be with him to the end, but that was another lie. He couldn't remember clearly when she had ever told him the truth. He couldn't remember her face anymore, it had receded to a vague outline of a delicate chin and a pair of arctic blue eyes. Once again she had left, left him alone.

A sudden noise brought him quickly to alertness, automatically he reached for the gun he always carried near him, but it wasn't there. He tried to sit up, become less vulnerable, but the intense agony that surged throughout his nerves kept him prone, helpless. Perhaps he had died, perhaps this was hell. He really wouldn't be surprised if it was, god knew he'd sinned enough to deserve it. But he'd always figured that hell would be hot, come to think of it he was rather cold at the moment. 

Suddenly a face came into view, a blurry face without detail. He blinked rapidly in order to clear his vision. Slowly, too slowly for his liking, it did indeed return. The face belonged to a woman, or rather a girl for she could be no older than eighteen. 

"Who…who are you?" he croaked, wincing at the harshness of his own voice. He sounded as if he hadn't spoken for a while, which was unusual, at least according to Jet who always said he was mouthing off too much. 

The girl smiled, a curiously blank smile, her pale green eyes glassy. She held something out for him to see and it took him a moment to recognize the object. A spoon, she was offering him a spoon. As if his brain had finally remembered smell, his nostrils were filled with the rich aroma of spices. His stomach growled, but he didn't have the energy to blush.

He tried to grab the spoon, unwilling to let anyone else feed him like was some invalid, though of course that was what he was. After a few tries he heaved a resigned sigh and grudgingly allowed her to feed him. He had never felt so humiliated in his life…well that wasn't entirely true, but as of then he couldn't recall anything else. 

"Angel?" a voice called and a figure entered his peripheral vision. He tensed, once again confronted by his complete helplessness and hating every second of it. The girl by his side moved out of his sight and he assumed she went to greet the man.

"How is he doing?" the man asked softly. There was a pause in which she must have answered him, but Spike couldn't' hear it for the life of him. "That's good. Was your day good?"

"What's going on?" Spike demanded testily, a headache beginning to form. "Who are you people?"

"Angel, darling, set the table I think we'll be having some guests soon enough." There was the rustling of cloth and then silence again. He could hear the man's steady breaths and the pounding of his own heart. The man slowly approached him, testing to see how he would react. He had to admire a man who didn't rush headlong into things, even if he wasn't that type of man himself.

"Who are you?" he repeated darkly, it even hurt to frown damn it. 

"My name is Lewiston, Lewiston Bishop," the man replied formally. "And you are Spike Spiegel, the new leader of the Red Dragons."

"What?" Spike demanded in shocked outrage.

"You killed Vicious, he was the leader, therefore now you are the leader," was the faintly amused reply. He heard the sound of a match being struck and then felt something warmly familiar pressed against his lips. Even debilitated, shot up and almost dead he wouldn't refuse a cigarette. 

****

Recuperating was hell. The boredom was almost as bad.

Spike knew he was going to go crazy soon if he didn't leave the apartment, no matter how comfortable it was. He probably would've left too if it wasn't for the incredible pain that assaulted him every time he tried to move, that and the ever-present gaze of the girl who was attending him. 

There was something odd about her, as if she wasn't entirely aware of what went on about her. Her eyes saw, but never observed anything, and that eerie little smile that never disappeared. Even her movement was of someone who was out of touch with the world or sleepwalking. She never spoke and could only answer 'yes' and 'no' questions by nodding or shaking her head, if she remembered to listen to the person speaking to her. 

Lewiston on the other hand was quite a contrast to his sister, Angel. He was rather talkative and continuously moving, as if he was only comfortable when he was busy doing something. There was a nervous energy about him that was rather disconcerting in a way that differed from his sister. Spike often felt dizzy watching the young man zip about the apartment. Those two were rather interesting people.

A frown darkened his face as he thought about the meetings the young Lewiston held. They were all with other surviving high-ranking members of the Red Dragons and they were all concerned with what would happen with their syndicate. Apparently many of the younger upstarts believe he was either dead or too weak to run it. Little did they know that he was indeed alive and had no interest in running anything, so it was rather frustrating when the others kept deferring to him as if he was indeed the leader. 

"You can't step down from leadership unless you're dead," Lewiston and the others told him constantly, as if he wasn't already aware of that aspect of the Red Dragons or any other mafia. Just like the gangs of old the only way to leave was in a body bag.

But Spike Spiegel had no intention of dying, not after so much trouble had been taken to keep him alive. Although, when the pain became too much, he often wished he was dead. He also wished to be on the Bebop again with the others, but Lewiston wouldn't tell him anything about it and the girl couldn't.

Perhaps he was still stuck in some horrible nightmare with no possibility of escape. That had been his goal when he had faced Vicious for the final time, to earn his freedom from the dream that overshadowed all he did. Now it seemed he was as deeply entrenched in the mist as he had been before, only now his future looked even bleaker. 

****

Angel hummed softly as she placed the bowl of soup by Spike on the small glass end table. It was an odd, something he hadn't heard before and yet it seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps it was something he had heard in his wilder days, in his scarred past. 

It seemed like decades since he had woken up, but in truth it had been merely weeks. Finally he was strong enough to feed himself and walk around for a limited amount of time. He was frustrated with his lack of stamina, it was as if his body had betrayed him. Though he moved under his own power he felt as helpless as he had felt when he was prone on the couch. 

The brother and sister looked after him. He would go out to work and shop while she cooked and cleaned and tended Spikes injuries. From what he could tell his presence hadn't interrupted their lives in the least and yet he still felt like an intruder. Once he was healed enough he would leave, let someone else run the Red Dragons, it wasn't his problem anymore. Faye had been right, he shouldn't have kept looking into the past. There was nothing good there, nothing at all. 

As he drank the soup, he hadn't been allowed to eat solids yet, much to his embarrassment, he noticed how she fidgeted more than usual and glanced at the clock vacantly for moments at end. It was obvious that she was becoming concerned about her brother for he usually was home around seven and it was already nine. If he had been any good with women he would have tried to comfort her, but since he wasn't he drank his soup.

When he had finished he wiped his mouth with the napkin provided. A small slip of paper fluttered from the napkin and landed on the floor by his feet. Grimacing in pain he slowly bent down and picked it up. 

__

Treachery within treachery. Are we still dreaming? 

He stared, perplexed, at the message scrawled across the paper. He glanced up and saw the girl standing by the window, smiling vacantly at the city below. She must have written it, she was, after all, the only other person in the room besides himself and he was pretty damn sure that he hadn't written it. Perhaps she was more aware than he had given her credit for. If that was true, was she trying to warn him of something coming? Was someone going to betray him?

"Angel?" Lewiston called throwing open the front door. The girl turned from the window and walked to her brother, smiling all the way. 

Spike's eyes narrowed as he noticed the steadily spreading stain on the side of the man's coat. Obviously he was wounded, perhaps severely. Treachery. Most likely one of the young upstarts had decided to relieve him, Spike, of the position as the leader of the Red Dragons. He would have been grateful of that if it didn't mean he had to die in order for that to happen. 

"Get him out of her, Angel," the brother coughed pushing her away urgently, she continued to smile blankly, but obeyed. The young man began to load his handgun as the girl urgently plucked at the sleeve of Spike's borrowed shirt. 

"Give me a gun," he commanded, ignoring the girl.

"No, it's my job to protect you," Lewiston told him coolly, "Even with my life."

"Don't waste your life on me," Spike grated in frustration. "I can probably shoot better than you even in this condition."

"Angel, get him out of here," the man said ignoring him.

"Give me a gun, damn it!"

Whatever Lewiston's answer might have been was cut off by an explosion of gunfire in the hallway.

"Damn, the guards are down," he hissed drawing another gun from the recesses of his coat. 

He dashed out, leaving Spike alone with the girl. She was still trying to get him to stand up, the soup forgotten on the table. There was another burst of gunfire, longer this time. 

Lewiston didn't return.

****

Okay, that's was my attempt at writing a Bebop fic, don't flame me too badly. If anyone likes this or thinks it has potential please tell me in a review and I'll try to get the next chapter up as quickly as I can.


	2. Angel Standing By

I've decided to write another chapter because I felt like it. Hope you all like it and review, review even if you don't like.   
  
  
  
Cowboy Bebop: Dream Sequence  
  
Session 28:  
Angel Standing By  
  
  
  
  
Angel left his side and walked towards the open door. Spike tried to grab her and drag her back; undoubtedly she would be hurt if she went to investigate the fighting in the hall. Unfortunately he was too slow and the pain that was rioting through his body didn't help either. He could only watch helplessly as she moved closer to her assured death.  
  
He cried out as a figure staggered into the room and collapsed into her arms. It was Lewiston.   
  
"Angel..." was all he managed to croak before all animation left his body. Slowly the brother and sister sank to the floor, she wasn't strong enough to support his weight. She didn't cry or say anything, she stared vacantly at the corpse in her arms, smiling eerily.   
  
Cursing darkly, Spike struggled out of the clutches of the couch and hobbled towards the girl. He had to get her out of here, if he didn't they would be dead alongside Lewiston. If it had just been himself he wouldn't have cared as much, but this was his fault and the girl was in the line of fire because of him, otherwise he most likely wouldn't have bothered.  
  
Before he reached her another person stepped into the room, gun raised high. The stranger fired off a few shots and then pointed the gun at Spike. He froze, muscles screaming from lack of use. If only that idiot had given him a gun, now he was dead and most like so were he and the girl.   
  
Suddenly the girl stood, leaving her brother's body sprawled on the floor. She stood between Spike and the armed intruder, her whole posture radiating unawareness. She probably didn't understand what was going on; most likely she couldn't tell that her brother was now dead.   
  
"Well, well, if it isn't the syndicate's little Dreaming Angel," the intruder sneered, lowering his gun. If Spike had been in better condition he could have used that opportunity to disable the man, perhaps permanently. Since he could barely stand without pain and didn't have a gun, there was nothing he could really do. He hated this.  
  
"You're a pretty thing," the man leered, raising the gun to stroke her cheek. She stood impassive under his exploration as if she wasn't even in the room, or maybe her mind.   
  
Suddenly the man grunted lowly and lurched away from her a bright red stain seeping across his chest. It was then that Spike noticed the gun the girl held, it had a silencer on it. The girl fired twice more, once into the guy's chest and once to the brain. The man wasn't going to be getting up during this lifetime.   
  
"Let's go," she said, her voice cold and completely lucid. He stared at her in shock, noting the sudden alertness in her actions and the emerald flames dancing in her pale green eyes.   
  
"How...?"  
  
"There's no time to explain. Here take this." She tossed him a gun and then ducked out into the hall. There was the sound of gunfire and then she came back into the room, reloading her gun. She slammed the door close and then moved swiftly across the room to the windows that overlooked the city. Deftly she opened one and leaned outside, firing off a few shots.   
  
"There's a fire escape in the bedroom," she told him. He nodded mutely, figuring that talking would only distract her. Questions were boiling in his mind though. Where had this sudden animation come from? Was that vagueness that had characterized her before only been a ruse? She was a better actor than he could ever be then. Could hide her pain better.  
  
She helped him into the room and then opened the window there, quickly scanning the street below. Silently she motioned him to follow and crawled out onto the rickety metal support. He managed to climb out, but only after cursing and struggling as his wound shot fiery brands throughout his body.   
  
"We have to go down, there's no other way," she told him looking thoughtfully at the descending fire escape ladder. He followed her gaze and mentally groaned, if the gunmen didn't kill him the exertion certainly would.   
  
He couldn't help grimacing every time he pulled the muscles in his abdomen the wrong way or whenever they made an especially loud noise. Adeptly she scaled down the ladder, feet landing with delicate surety on each rung. He envied her agony-free mobility as he clumsily followed her down.   
  
"Where are we going to go?" he asked her when they had made it down finally. Before she could answer, though, a shot rang out and she flung herself atop him. A few seconds later she was up and firing at the opening of the alley.   
  
"Get under cover," she yelled shoving him behind a dumpster. He hated feeling so completely useless, allowing someone else to take control and make all the decisions. Not that he could do much injured as he was, but he should be able to do something, damn it. That girl shouldn't be forced to handle his problems, she was an innocent bystander in the whole affair. Well, not exactly, but if she had been as vapid and dazed as she had been before he would say that. The new Angel was anything but helpless, he had to admire that.  
  
"How dare you try to harm your leader?" she demanded between shots, there were a few cries of pain, but still the enemies fired.   
  
"Angel stop this, the syndicate doesn't need some half dead old-timer that can't even shoot," a cold voice announced and a man stepped into the dim light filtering down from apartment windows.   
  
"My brother and I are have pledged our lives to this man, as have the rest of you, no matter what his current condition," she retorted, training her gun on him but not firing.  
  
Spike couldn't recognize the man, obviously the guy had joined long after he had left. Narrowing his eyes he noted that he had a clean shot, if only his hand would stop shaking he could take it.   
  
"That is a fool's ambition, a worthless goal. I'd hate to have to hurt you, my dear, but I might have to if you don't step aside."  
  
Angel's silvery laugh echoed like a siren's song between the buildings, seeping into the deepening night, and the guy hesitated momentarily. "You might hurt me?" she demanded, still chuckling, "I am no longer the syndicate's Dreaming Angel, you don't need my fortunes." There was something so cruelly amused about her manner that he felt a slight chill travel up and down his spine.   
  
"If you are no longer the Dreaming Angel, then what are you? What can you possibly be?" the man demanded angrily. Spike guessed that he was trying to compensate for his earlier pause. Showing fear in front of one's "loyal" followers was the surest way to the grave in this business.   
  
"I am Death's Angel," the girl replied emotionlessly. The sound of four objects thudding into a yielding surface filled the night after her announcement.   
  
"You bi..." the man collapsed at her feet, a stunned silence ensued.   
  
"You swore your life to him and I have taken the debt owed," she said calmly. "Does anyone one else dare to challenge his authority? He is you leader until the day your blood is spilt upon a dirty floor defending him and the syndicate."  
  
"Can I say that I don't want to be a leader?" Spike piped up helpfully, a sheepishly pained expression on his face. She gave him a warning look and turned back to the alley.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sudden, darting movement. With a fluid motion, that would most definitely be costing him later, he swung around fired once. The man he had hit cried out, reflexively shooting into the air, and landed with a dull thud on the dingy asphalt.   
  
A muttered damn echoed through the shadows and the sound of feet moving away at a frantic pace was the only sound. His whiskey brown eyes scanned the area but detected no other life besides himself and Angel.   
  
Speaking of Angel what was that all about? Pretending to be completely out of it and then snapping back to reality with an alacrity that left his brain turning summersaults trying to figure it all out. He had to know her game, his survival might depend on it, even if it didn't he was too curious to leave it alone.   
  
"We should head for the sanctuary," Angel told him as she turned back to him. He tried to read her expression in the faulty light, but shadows crept across her face and obscured it.   
  
She took a step towards him and stumbled, the gun dropping from her pale fingers. Ignoring his own pain he half sprinted half limped towards her. When he had finally crossed the few feet the separated them he could see her inspecting a suspiciously dark area on her shirt.   
  
"You've been shot," he told her stating the obvious; she gave him a wry look.  
  
"Appears so," she remarked casually. "Damn it." With his help she stood up, more or less.   
  
"When?" he asked. For the life of him he couldn't honestly remember he ever showing any signs of pain until then.  
  
"The time I jumped you," she replied, dark amusement coloring her deceptively soft voice. "Showing weakness is the fastest way to die." He remembered thinking something similar to that moments ago. This girl was more aware of the world than she had first let on.  
  
"Then what's with this sudden..." he waved his hand in an attempt to express what he couldn't quite vocalize without sounding like a complete idiot.  
  
"Lucidity?" she filled in, her face without an hint of emotion. A cool flame flared deep within her eyes, which were trained on his own.  
  
"Yeah, that."  
  
"Have you ever heard of Dream Sequence?" she asked, giving him a tug to get him walking.  
  
"The drug?"  
  
"That's the one."  
  
"You're a Dream addict?" he asked incredulously. Either he was losing his skill of observation or something else was going on because he couldn't recall ever seeing her shoot up.   
  
"Not quite, but close," she replied with a small shrug. "Do you know anything about it?"  
  
"A little," he admitted as the emerged from the depressingly filthy alley. "Its original purpose was a new form of anti-depressant, but clinical testing and studies proved it to be highly addictive. Not only that but users were put in a trance-like state of euphoria."  
  
"They were like sleep-walkers," the girl added nodding. She appeared mildly impressed by his not so extensive knowledge of the drug. "I'm like that only I don't need to take the drug," was her ambiguous reply.  
  
He gave her a questioning look, which she ignored as she pulled him into another alley. Overhead a few glittering dots could be seen through the artificially created atmosphere. With a strong sense of yearning he remembered hurtling through space in the Swordfish II. The Bebop...what were they doing? Faye and Jet, he was dead to them. He should be dead, that had been his whole goal, not that he would tell anyone that. He had thought the only escape route was death, his only choice.  
  
"My mother was an addict," Angel remarked interrupting his dark reverie.   
  
"What?" he asked, pulling himself out of the morass that was his mind.  
  
"My mother took it when Lewiston and my father left her, she was pregnant with me at the time," there was something coldly bitter in her tone, she probably blamed her mother for whatever it was that was the matter with her now. "None of the doctors and researches ever tested how it would interact with an unborn fetus. Why would they?"  
  
"So..." he prompted after a long pause, their soft breathing filling the stagnate air.   
  
"How are you feeling? We're here," she told him as they stopped in front of an unexceptional dumpster.   
  
"Fine," was his terse reply as another brand of pain flared up from his wound. "And so?"  
  
She ignored him and felt along the side of the trash receptacle. She grunted in pain as she pulled the untreated wound. He took a half step to assist her though he really had no idea how.  
  
"There," she announced as a soft hiss surrounding them. He cried out and stumbled backwards, falling on his butt, as the front of the dumpster suddenly flew up.  
  
"Sorry," she said with chagrin.  
  
"You could have warned me," he told her in annoyance. She shrugged in a way that said that she could have but hadn't.   
  
She offered him her hand, which he wouldn't have accepted except that his injury wouldn't let him keep the last remnants of his pride. He followed her into the dumpster and the tunnel beyond. When the dumpster closed up behind them he jumped at the gun-like bang, she chuckled softly and opened a door that was invisible in the complete darkness.   
  
He heard a soft click and a soft golden glow burned his eyes. Blinking against the sudden brilliance he sensed her moving away.   
  
"It's so hard to stay conscious," she murmured from somewhere before him. Slowly his sight returned and he noted the bunker-like room he now stood in. Angel was opening the cupboards that lined one side of the room. Finding what she was looking for she gave a satisfied grunt and removed a medium sized white case.   
  
"What's that?" he asked suspiciously, it was in his nature and he wasn't about to lose it.  
  
"First aide," she answered setting it on the small table that occupied one corner. "I'm afraid that you'll have to take over for a while."  
  
"Why?" he asked coming closer to examine the case's contents. He took note of the painkillers and clean bandages, those would definitely come in handy.  
  
"Well, my brain creates a chemical that is similar in structure to Dream so it's hard for me to maintain lucidity for...long...periods..." As her voice trailed off he glanced up.  
  
"What the..." The flames faded from her eyes and were replaced by a glassy unconcern. The same eerily serene smile that he had come to know bloomed on her lips. Angel was no longer home.  
  
****  
  
On to the next chapter. The reason this took so long was that whole system shut down. How annoying was that? It said something like two and half months of waiting and I would have waited too if I hadn't of gotten an email from a reviewer for another story. Anyway, please review and I'll start working on the next chapter.   



	3. Pain Inside

I'm bad, I'm sorry I should've written sooner, please review.

Cowboy Bebop: Dream Sequence

Session 29:

Pain Inside

She flew through the clouds, immense wings curving against the frigid air. Below the jagged rents of civilization stretched out in a glittering sea of phosphorescence. She felt free and powerful, a heady combination to be sure. 

She banked left and found herself sitting astride a large creature. Slender limbs replaced the tissue thing wings and she hugged the sleek neck of the beast she rode. Its scaled hide abraded her bare legs and arms and she knew it to be a dragon. She glanced down and found the cities aflame in crimson fires. Great jets of flames spewed forth to snare her mount and drag them down. The graceful creature wheeled adeptly through the air, brushing perilously close to the deadly ribbons. 

With a horrified scream they fell, the dragon bellowing in pain. A geyser of blood drenched her in the sticky fluid as the beast's head fell roaring from its body.

****

Angel slid through the dark waters of the subconscious and opened her eyes. She saw the man shifting nervously. She had to remember something. Who was he? She couldn't quite grasp it. The knowledge skirted brazenly around the edge of her clouded mind. She felt that he was important, perhaps if…no, he wouldn't be coming back. Lewiston, brother…dead? She held an image of blood and death to her mind and couldn't decipher it.

Spike. Dragons. If only she could remember. She needed to remember. A faint pricking swam up through her thoughts, an idea perhaps.

Her body jerked as she shook off the power of the haze. The man, Spike, the new leader of the Red Dragons, looked at her. Lewiston had died, died to protect them. She had become Death's Angel.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded as her ward started to move towards the door. She knew he was going to leave something she couldn't allow. 

"You're back," he muttered.

"I never left." He shrugged and reached into his shirt pocket. He glanced down and apparently found it empty of whatever he had been going to take. A cigarette? Her brother had mentioned something of his smoking habit.

"Mentally you did. So is that what Dream does?" She ran a hand through her black hair and nodded.

"It's hard to stay coherent for long periods of time and the longer I do the longer it takes until I can be lucid again. I haven't tried for a long time so I can stay here, mentally, for a couple hours at most. I haven't tried to stay longer," she remarked. She noted the lack of shirt and the white bandage wound about her chest. He noticed the direction of her gaze and had the decency to blush.

"I had to bandage it."

"I know. And your wound?"

"Couldn't be…" His voice ended in a drawn out hiss as he stretched his injury. "Better. Damn it." She laughed softly and scouted off the small cot.

"We can't stay here forever. Do you know anyone or anyplace to go? I'm afraid I haven't been out of the apartment for a long time."

"The Bebop." She flinched at the mention of that name and looked away. He didn't know that the crew of his old ship thought he was dead. They were probably solar systems away by now.

"Anywhere else?" He gave her a hard look, suspicion flared in the depths of his whisky brown eyes. 

"Why not the Bebop? I have friends…well, friend there. Faye's an acquaintance, a damn annoying one at that." She sighed in frustration. She would have to tell him sooner or later, but she had the feeling that as soon as she did he would go gallivanting off to find them. The rumors made him to be a very stubborn and outspoken man and she heartily agreed with them.

"They're not here anymore," she told him carefully.

"What happened to them." He took a threatening step forwards and then checked his anger. "Where are they?"

"They think you're dead, Spike. Everyone except for those in the Red Dragons believes you to be dead. We even had a funeral for you and Vicious. They're gone." He stared at her, disbelief plain on his angular face.

"Dead?" She nodded. He threw back his head and laughed.

****

Okay it is a little short, but I have been updating all my stories like crazy and I only have so much creative energy to spare. So please review and I'll try to get another one out by January.


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